punee

That doesn't seem very logical.

First, I think you mean "less valued". That's generally what happens when there's little demand for something, or when there's a good substitute at a cheaper price.

Second, if all the free, evil ad-sponsored content on the internet is of such "low quality", it certainly would make such services more valuable, as it would offer something scarce. Their conspicuous absence seems to indicate something is amiss with this analysis.

People tend to rely on watching television commercials to learn about new products. So you should buy more TV advertising. Correct?

That's not a claim that will meet much opposition.

However, to claim that marketing is inherently "manipulative", or that manipulative tactics are even a significant part of it, seems a little ill-informed.

Y Combinator's motto is "Make something people want". To the overwhelming majority of practitioners, this is exactly what marketing sets out to do.

Which probably makes it improper to call it "product placement".

Where is that service if it's so valuable?

It's quite telling, but by no means surprising on Hacker News, that you completely failed to address the question.

The question wasn't "What would you do if you were looking for something to buy".

The question is: "What would you do if you were a business and had something to sell?"

Yeah, it's just too bad you're the only person in the world to define advertising and marketing that way, I guess? At least among people who know what they're talking about.

The point is that those requirements seem redundant.

If the exam is intended as an assessment of your knowledge, then why should it matter how much time you spent acquiring that knowledge?

Presumably, if the exam is well-designed, you can't pass it without understanding the material, which you could learn over however many hours you like. Requiring both an exam and a mandatory number of hours seems redundant.

His comment sounds like a joke.

So you will upvote differing views that you find interesting. And they will be included in your "bubble". Tada.

An "airtight echo chamber" would be a situation where the only information I get is a restatement of something I already know.

It's not even remotely analogous to what I'm suggesting, which is simply filtering out (some of) the noise.

No, I don't see any flaw.

Am I supposed to carefully read every stupid comment from a poster that so far has only annoyed me on the off chance that he writes something insightful once in a blue moon?

I'll ignore him and take that risk. I'm sure it's still a +EV move overall.